


Dusk to Daybreak

by CrumblingAsh



Series: ScienceBros Week Collection [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Bruce, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, BAMF Tony, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Bittersweet Ending, Body Horror, Brian Banner's A+ Parenting, Bruce Banner-centric, Bruce Has Issues, Child Abuse, Dom Bruce, First Meetings, Ghost Bruce, Ghost Tony, Hurt Bruce, Hurt Tony, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kid Peter Parker, Light BDSM, Love Confessions, M/M, Omega Tony, Omega Verse, Parent Bruce Banner, Parent Tony Stark, Poor Bruce, Protective Bruce, Protective Tony, Self-Mutilation, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Sub Tony, Terrorism, Tony Being Tony, Tony Has Issues, Tony Needs a Hug, Torture, War, hopelessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:00:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7569823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Seven one-shots written to the prompts of the second annual Science Bros Week</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>1. (Ghost AU): Tony should be walking like the others, heading for the gate and leaving the park. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting on this bench, pulling the skin from his hand instead. </p><p>2. (High school AU): "I wish someone would be there to say good-bye to <i>me</i> tonight."</p><p>3. (Alpha/Omega AU): Seeking refuge in Thor's coffee shop after almost killing Betty's latest in an Alpha rage, Bruce finds a quiet, rather unusual Omega.</p><p>4. (Dom/Sub AU): But the man’s smile grows. “Tony,” he repeats. It sounds like a purr in his voice. “I’m Bruce."</p><p>5. (Mob AU): The man currently breaking Bruce's bones is describing a different Tony Stark than the one Bruce knows.</p><p>6. (Soulmate AU): They call it "chemical separation" - the chemical process of dissolving the connection between Soulmates to the point of nonexistence.</p><p>7. (No Powers/War AU): Eleven months since Hydra had brought their terror to America. This was just how life was now - trying to go each day without losing hope. <i>“Sometimes I think it would be better for him if he just didn't wake up to this anymore…”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Human

**Author's Note:**

> **prompt: "yesterday"**

* * *

 

 

On a bench in the middle of the park, Tony slowly pulls a strip of skin from his pale, blue-veined hand – right from the bottom of his left ring finger, all the way to the edge of his palm.

He can’t look away from himself, helplessly fascinated by the way his skin bunches up so easily beneath his fingers, wrinkling in like wet toilet paper and tearing apart just as easily. Though the piece he’s gathered is thick, it’s silent as he rips it away, dangling lifelessly in the air above his knees as he holds it, floppy and soggy and not as angry looking as torn skin should look. No longer attached to him, he doesn’t find it as interesting – it simply falls as he lets it slip from his fingers, smacking against the grass between his feet. The skin crumples in on itself like discarded trash – at this time of day, with the sun as high in the sky and as unhindered by cloud coverage as it is, it will bake and go rotten in hours.

Tony turns his attention back to his hand.

He’s not bleeding that badly, all things considered – he’s just pulled a meaty piece from his hand, but there’s no hot, vibrant red liquid spilling down his wrist or staining the dark denim of his pants in retaliation of the self-inflicted wound. The blood that does come up above the ridges of the crevice he’s made is dark, slow, oozing above the uneven edges the same way that oil creeps onto ocean waters through a hole of a punctured tanker – unsure if it’s allowed to escape but wanting out anyway. He doubts it would ignite if exposed to a flame, though, the way that oil would – it’s too empty. Too cold.

For just one second, Tony closes his eyes against the mess he’s made of himself, blocking out the tear and the blood, and takes in an unhurried, deep breath.

It’s _almost_ easy. He can _almost_ feel the satisfying burn of his lungs expanding. He can _almost_ taste what the air in the park tastes like.

_Almost._

His fingers pinch another bit of skin before his eyes open again.

 

* * *

 

 

Despite how classically perfect this day is, with its bright sun and great temperature that is neither too hot or too chilly, there are no children racing through the long stretches of soft grass in the park, shrieking with laughter or playing with their colorful toys. There are no sweetheart couples on a mid-afternoon stroll during their lunch breaks, their clasped hands swinging gently between them, smiles of contented happiness on their faces as they enjoy the company of one another. There are no mothers pushing strollers of quietly napping babies, no joggers exercising their city-life dogs – there isn’t even one homeless person sitting on a bench, all of their worldly possessions in a bag at their side, eyes vacant but shoulders still tense with that last bit of hope that just won’t fade.

But, despite that appearance, Tony isn’t the only person in the park.

They stick to the walking path that winds its way through the grass, stretching from the back fence to the front gate. Their arms are always at their sides, hanging loose and swinging in rhythm with their steps, their eyes always focused straight ahead of them, like they’re following a hypnotizing siren. Like they’re on a leash, being led like animals instead of people. They come in all ages, all sizes, all colors, all varying states of dress and health, sometimes in packs from two to thirteen, most times just alone, looking more lost than anyone should.

No matter any of that, they never look at Tony – not even the ones whose paths are close enough to his bench that he could easily stretch out a leg and trip them. Not one of them ever says a word to him, not even a mumbled greeting given in passing. And Tony never calls out to them, never feels a yearning for some form of acknowledgment that’s ever intense to be worth breaking his solitude.

He’s studying his hand again when the telling sound of feet against cement reaches his ears – this one is a feet-dragged, probably too far under whatever spell is leading them to notice. He doesn’t bother sparing a glance upward to check, feeling a spark of interest instead in the way the skin at the knuckle of his pinky crinkles a little more than it does at any other finger. It mushes and molds easily when he pushes at it, swirling and staying in whatever position he puts it in. It’s clearly done with being a barrier between the inside of his body and the outside of the world; he can already picture how it will look snuggled between the blades of the grass when he gets it free and lets it go, its wrinkles able to stretch out and relax when it no longer has to focus its existence on protecting him.

He gives the gathering another nudge with his finger, more forceful than the ones before, and the skin pulls apart enough to form a hole, dark with the blood that waits patiently beneath.

With a mental shrug, he snags the upper section of the hole between his forefinger and his thumb, carefully tugging. There’s no real need to be cautious – it’s already ruined – but there’s a flare of morbid curiosity in his chest to see if he can keep the skin intact enough that it will still be in the form of his pinky even when it’s no longer wrapped around it.

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

_“What the fuck?!”_

The question – the _voice_ – is so unexpected that Tony’s body spasms in twisted surprise, ears ringing from the introduction of a sound louder than footsteps. The movement makes his arm jerk, and in response the skin tears off to the side of the fingernail. The resulting spiral it makes would be more interesting if not for the fact that it means that half of his finger is still covered.

“Is that a yes?”

It’s more the shock of it all that makes Tony’s head lift up than any actual desire to see the speaker.

The person standing on the path is a man, still facing forward in the direction of the gate, but with his head strangely turned toward Tony. His face is so pale that it’s almost colorless, which emphasizes the tangled shades of grey in his eyes and makes his chapped, blue lips stand out all the more, colors that don’t match the day.

A scowl draws in on Tony’s forehead even as a tightness in his chest unfurls with a roll at the weight of the man’s attention, and he waves his wrecked hand in the air, dropping the curling strip flesh in aggravated disgust. “You screwed it up,” he tries to snarl, but it comes out soft from his tight throat that still burns from his exclamation before.

The man’s head tilts, the movement seeming oddly stiff. Bits of white _something_ fall from the brown strands of his hair as he does, audibly hitting the pathway below. “Sorry,” he offers – Tony’s not sure if it sounds sincere or not. “I just… I’ve never seen anyone willingly do that to themselves. Or at least not that much of that to themselves. It looks painful.” The grey eyes blink. “So it _doesn’t_ hurt?”

Tony glances down at his hand, where the dark blood has already piled up enough to form a slow-moving layer where the skin had been. The sight is abruptly infuriating, and his teeth gnash together in a vicious clench and grind as he violently swipes his hand across his pants, leaving a trail of wetness behind on the fabric. “Aren’t you supposed to be _walking_ right now?’ he demands, shooting his unwanted companion a glare. The words are stronger this time. “Everyone _else_ keeps with the walking – go back to the walking.”

A mixture of emotions flickers across the man’s unnaturally white face, too rapid to be able to identify even one. His head turns the other way, the twist of his neck still stiff, but whatever he’s looking at, he doesn’t stare at for very long before his attention is returned to Tony.

“But where am I even walking to?” The man’s lips give a pitiful little twitch at the end of the question, like he’s trying to bury that lost tone under a misplaced humor he can’t quite dredge up. The grey of his eyes is suddenly more of a storm-heavy blue, and something in them has Tony’s gut swirling in tiny spirals he can almost pretend he doesn’t notice. “I know I’m leaving the park, but after that … nothing. My goal is to get out, and that’s it. That’s all. I don’t even want to go anywhere specific once I’m out. None of the ideas I can think of sound right.” He shivers, hard and visible, like he’s standing barefoot and naked in the middle of a vast icefield instead of heavily clothed under the sun in the middle of this park, and his eyes narrow at Tony. Not accusing, not criticizing, just … thoughtful. Almost desperate. “What aren’t _you_ walking?”

Startled by the question, Tony blinks. “… I …”

Again, his throat tightens, softening his voice to that small dumb sound.

“I’m just …” ah, hell. He closes his eyes, letting his head fall back against the bench with a clunk. “I’m just not.”

It’s pathetic and lame and, seriously, not a real answer, but it’s all he has. It’s a truth. He had been walking and then he had seen the bench, and now he’s not walking anymore. That’s just it.

“Are you waiting for someone?” A pause, and then, on the heavy exhale of an aching breath, “I think maybe someone’s waiting for me, on the other side of the gate. I think that’s why I’m going there – not to go to some place, but to get to them. And maybe they’ll have some ideas of where to go after, ones that will fit right. You think?”

Tony doesn’t answer – can’t, literally, his throat so tight that it’s taking a borderline monumental effort to even breathe, let alone speak. He stares out into the blackness of his closed eyes, the little spins of color that swim across the void, and focuses on making his heavy chest inflate with oxygen. In, out – worth the effort – in, out – it is.

_Don’t stop breathing._

When he opens his eyes again, the man is no longer standing lost and hesitant in front of him. Instead, with a turn of his own neck, Tony can see him further down the path, hobbling away toward the gate with barely-bending knees, the lower section of his left arm hanging by a solitary strip of skin and muscle from his shoulder, floppy and useless and oddly not bleeding, though he can see the blood that coats the jaggedly broken, exposed bone.

It looks like it hurts.

 

* * *

 

 

Others follow the way the man takes.

An elderly woman with a gleaming silver walker and no shoes makes her way slowly by him, dressed in a white nightgown of blue flowers, a soft smile of peace on her face. Before she’s even completely gone from his sight, a middle-aged couple appears, a little boy between them who is clutching tightly to both of their extended hands. All three are wearing the yellow oxygen masks that come from the above compartments of depressurized planes, their clothing torn apart and charred, clinging to their blistering bodies like burnt skin. There’s a lull between when he can no longer see that family and when the redheaded woman in black appears, a solemn group of twelve children in hospital gowns following behind her in a perfectly straight line. Like the couple and the little boy before, the children are all grotesquely burned, gowns all but falling from their small, destroyed bodies, but their eyes are all bright and attentive on the quiet, unburned woman who leads them.

Just like all the times before, unlike the broken man, not a single one of these people seem to even be aware that Tony is in the same park as them. They don’t look in his direction, they don’t pause – they say nothing. And just like all the times before, and unlike with the broken man, Tony doesn’t speak out to any of them, either. Like all the times before, he just watches.

The park is quiet, and his ears _roar_ with it, and he resents the man for making him realize just how unsettling the silence is. How much of it is surrounding him.

 _‘He’s probably out by now.’_ The thought is more than a little bitter. _‘With that person who was waiting for him. Bet they’re talking – guy was a talker. Lots of talking. All he had to do was walk out.’_

Tony had been walking.

Not too long ago, but far enough ahead of any others that, until he had seen the bench, he’d honestly thought he’d been completely alone. He’s been at the back of the park, has stood at the beginning of the cement walkway that starts at the trunk of the tall oak tree in the corner. He’s followed its turns and its circles, walked by the beautifully blooming flowers of purple and pink and red. He know the drive to continue forward, to make it to the gate.

He doesn’t feel a fucking ounce of it now.

_Are you waiting for someone?_

 

* * *

 

 

The skin on the knuckle of his left pinky has gathered in on itself again, the mistaken tear that had ruined it now gone, the blood unseen as if it had never existed, the only proof of it left in the stain that slices across his pant leg. Again, there’s so much more of it than on any of his other fingers, as though it had grown there accidentally and now needs to be removed, for how easily it still shifts under Tony’s testing touches.

But the skin of his ring finger has also returned, whole and flawless and aching as frantically as before to be taken off.

Tony stares at his hand, the entire thing that’s covered in pruning skin so pale that he can easily see his blue veins making their map underneath it; so pale that the bruises that are wrapped evenly around his wrists stand out like freshly-applied tattoos. There’s no pain to touch them, to press against them just shy of hard enough to make that skin tear, too. Marbled agonized purple and furious red, he knows that there should be pain.

_Doesn’t that hurt?_

He’d been too distracted, and now it’s all back again. Again.

With the sunlight casting a perfectly exposing glow along his hands, Tony slides the bottom of his fingernail along the crease where his ring finger connects with his palm, the flesh splitting easily despite how bitten up and dulled the nail is. Last time, he’d sliced it down the midd – no. No, last time he’d broken and twisted the bone and pulled _everything_ off, both muscle _and_ ski- no. No, Jesus Christ, that’s _not_ what he had done.

The ever-old sound of approaching footsteps reaches his ears again, but Tony’s not paying attention. Not this time. He doesn’t want to see what doesn’t happen, doesn’t need to be witness to eyes landing on everything except for him, doesn’t want that distraction to suck him in so deeply again. Last time, he’d pinched the tip of his finger and pulled away the underside of it, slow and appreciative, all the way down to the bottom of his palm. And it had come away so easily for him, detached from his bone almost by its own desire, wet and wanting to be free of him.

Last time. This time, he has the chance to try something different. He can do to his ring finger what he’d tried to do to his pinky earlier – take the whole thing off in just one long piece. There’s no excess skin to increase the odds of premature tearing or to make little destructive holes. If he goes slow enough, he can get it off, have the piece like an empty shell. A husk. He can do it.

Tony can’t hear the footsteps anymore. He doesn’t really notice. They come, they pass, they leave – if he doesn’t look up –

“Holy shit,” a voice breathes, loud.

He doesn’t even flinch this time, keeps his movements calm and steady to get this right.

“No.” The hiss still makes his throat burn, but he says it anyway. If he doesn’t look up, he can pretend that they don’t see him because he’s _hiding_ from them. He can pretend that he doesn’t _want_ them to see him. The broken man be fucking damned.

He rolls the skin up a bit away from the circular cut he’s made, forming a dark, not yet bleeding gap.

“Holy shit,” the voice repeats, and then, softer still and near reverent, _“Tony.”_

Tony freezes, eyes locked on his finger, terror bursting wide and wild in his gut.

That’s his _name._

In this park, on this beautiful day, he hasn’t heard so much as whisper in the breeze that’s sounded even remotely like his name.

But the voice says it without hesitation, with too much force and care.

 _‘Don’t,’_ he warns himself even as his eyes skitter from his skin to the shoes that cover the feet he hadn’t acknowledged the sounds of. A wheezing whistle, faint, escapes his mouth as he sucks in a breath, and his gaze moves slowly upward, across kaki-covered legs and the hem of a dark purple shirt. _‘Don’t.’_ His throat tightens again.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

“-missing for three months,” the voice is saying. “They found your body yesterday, dragged you – _it_ – from the river. You’d been chained up, tied down to some heavy piece of machinery that had the SI logo stamped on it.”

Breathe. You can. You can. **_Breathe._**

_‘Don’t, please!’_

Tony lifts his head.

The eyes looking down on him are vibrant brown and incredibly warm, shining with unfalling tears that make Tony’s own eyes burn. The man in front of him is soaking wet, dripping dark drops of water onto the light cement below, but he doesn’t shiver, and he doesn’t shake, and he doesn’t do anything to take himself even a step back from Tony. The expression on his face is both abundant delight and intense _longing_ , and without asking, without being told, Tony knows it’s all directed at him. _For_ him.

The revelation catches him off-guard, so strong that he forgets himself. For some reason, he goes to reach his hand out, still clutching the skin of his ring finger.

The flesh rips so sharply he can hear it.

They both can.

The man’s face morphs from that warming bliss into pure terrified horror as his eyes move from Tony’s face to his once again wrecked hand. “Tony.” It’s not awed now. It’s aghast. Mortified. “Tony, what-?”

“It doesn’t hurt!” It rasps out, hot – Tony flings the strip of skin away from them both, hiding his hand quickly behind his back as if he can banish the image of the mess from the man’s mind simply by getting it out of sight. “It doesn’t. I don’t feel it at all. It’s fine.”

The man’s mouth moves, no words coming out.

A thick drop of blood plops onto the pathway, and Tony’s eyes are instinctively drawn to it, a cringing apology on his lips, ready.

But the guilt disappears at the sight of bright red, at how the drop thins out into a flat splatter. His blood doesn’t do that; doesn’t flow that quickly, doesn’t come out that bright. It doesn’t look that alive, that _fresh_ -

“…Tony.”

His gaze moves back up.

The man’s eyes have gone sorrowful, no longer surrounding him in the welcoming warmth, and his brow furrows. “Tony … do you know who I am?”

Without that intoxicating look to distract him, Tony can see it now. The stream of blood making its way heavily down the side of the man’s face, the same shade of red as what’s on the ground.

“Tony, do you remember my name?”

It’s seeping from a small, neat hole broken in the man’s temple, a steady flow that doesn’t show any interest in stopping. On the other side of his head, hidden amongst wet curls, is the other side of it – more violent, not as neat, not bleeding at all.

“Christ. _Christ._ Tony. Tony, it’s me. It’s Bruce. Remember? Remember me?”

breathe.

He gives the man back his eyes.

“How do you know _my_ name?”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _(I have an alternate ending to this piece that I can put on tumblr once this is all finished. It's not necessarily happier, or even necessarily more explanatory, but it's different. If anyone wants.)_


	2. Kiss The Bullet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt: "spark"**

* * *

 

 

_Twinkle, twinkle, little star,_

_How I wonder where you are._

_U_ _p above the world so high,_

_Like a diamond in the sky._

 

_When the blazing sun is gone,_

_When he nothing shines upon,_

_Then you show your little light,_

_T_ _winkle, twinkle, all the night._

 

* * *

 

 

Tony doesn’t mean to pry.

Really, he doesn’t. Contrary to what Jarvis and the house staff and even his own _mother_ are always saying, Tony doesn’t take any pleasure in butting into the business of other people. Sure, he’s curious as hell, about every _fucking_ thing, but he doesn’t really ever like to ask. Asking can easily be taken by the second party as prying, and prying often leads to confrontation, which rarely ever ends well for the person accused of prying.

Tony has had enough of badly-ended confrontations to last him endless lifetimes – those bruises take forever to disappear.

But when Bruce Banner jerks himself out of a near-doze for the twelfth time in forty-nine minutes, Tony can’t help but be intrigued.

Mr. Coulson’s voice is, as always, intentionally monotone as he explains the purposes of the equations he’s written out on the board. Equations that Tony could do while unconscious, equations he knows _Banner_ can do while unconscious. He’s hacked the school’s system before to check on his potential rivals, he knows how intelligent the other boy is. Boredom is easily forgiven in this class – understood, even.

But Tony’s never seen Banner be so blatantly dismissive of a lesson before, never seen him not crack open his book and at least _pretend_ to be following along with the teacher.

But Tony’s also never seen Banner with brown-purple bruises under his eyes before, either. Has never seen his eyes so glazed over, his shoulders so slumped, his hands so shaky the he can barely hold his pencil straight enough to scratch whatever he’s writing into his notebook. Like a druggie edging into withdraw, needing a fix.

Only Tony’s seen those people before, and Banner’s expression is completely clear despite the warring appearances of his body.

 _‘What’s wrong?’_ Tony silently asks his classmate, just shy of curious enough to actually voice the question out loud. _‘What is it? What’s bothering you?’_

The bell shrieks just as Coulson is putting his marker back to whiteboard, and the teacher is quick to shout out a reminder about the homework as everyone springs excitedly from their seats, ready to be out of the class.

Banner is amongst them, silent but just as fast – too quick for Tony to even try to catch as he sweeps the contents of his desk into his book bag and darts for the door. Too quick to realize that his notebook has fallen to the floor and therefore not in his bag.

Tony doesn’t mean to pry.

He really, really doesn’t fucking like to.

But if the notebook is laying on the floor, already opened to a page, well … that doesn’t really count as prying, does it?

 _‘Stark logic,’_ he sneers to himself as he leans over to pick the fallen notebook up.

But his hand freezes before he touch the white pages, eyes locking on the words that are written so heavily in pencil that they’re almost black.

 

**_I wish someone would be there to say good-bye to me tonight_ **

* * *

 

 

Bruce carries the gun loosely in his left hand as he makes his way through the cornfield behind his aunt and uncle’s house.

He glances quickly to the sky, to the half-moon hanging happily so high above, the spattering of stars twinkling as they always do – to the one star, smaller than most and so randomly placed, before dropping his gaze again.

They’ll hear it regardless of how far he goes, the crack of the gunshot – that echo carries for miles, loud enough no matter the distance from one point to another. There have been nights when the farmer who owns the field has spent hours hunting with his sons, leaving Bruce to fall asleep to the lullaby of bullets seeking a deathblow to their prey in the dark. After months of those nights, the sound has become something of a white noise to him, soothing even though it’s nothing. He’s never been as close to the source of it as he’s going to be, never had that bursting snap be so overwhelming and head-pounding – the idea twists in nauseous excitement in his stomach, a tangle of butterflies that he almost spits out from it being too much.

At most, they’ll think that one of the farmer’s sons has just gotten too close, that one of the shotgun rounds has come too near to the house. At most, his uncle will wait until morning before driving to the farm to give the farmer a piece of his mind, ranting about gun safety and regulations and threatening (maybe even giving) a ticket or two. At most, it will take them until dinner to realize something’s different. At most, it will take them at least a day and a half to find him in this corn-maze field.

A cornstalk smacks firmly but gently across his arm – one that has fallen over from its own weight tries to trip his foot – countless others reach out to brush against him, like half-hearted attempts to pull him back and keep him. Bruce is too drained to sneer at them, too weary to even be annoyed. He’s _tired_ , so damn exhausted – he hasn’t slept in going on thirty-seven hours, and every step he takes feels both too heavy and too light, like the sensations of moving about in a dream. He squeezes his tongue between his teeth rhythmically, hard enough to draw a small burst of pain, just to make sure that he really is awake.

He glances over his shoulder, noticing that he can’t make out the sharp details of the house anymore, and veers a little to the left, closer to the woods.

That he’s really doing this.

He stops a few feet later, and lets the butt of the gun rest on the ground.

He hasn’t slept in thirty-seven hours, and even though the idea of crawling into bed sends his mind thrashing, the prospect of actually closing his eyes for longer than the duration of a blink makes them water with surging relief. His fingertips trace over the barrel of the gun.

He’s thought about how to do this. There are several different ways. If he’s angry at himself, he can point it at his stomach. If he’s angry at his family, he can put it under his chin. If he wants it classic and quick, he can turn his head and put the metal against his temple. If he hates himself, wants to take his time, wants to taste it as it comes to him, he can stick it in his mouth, roll his tongue around the opening, really understand what it is that he means to do.

Bruce _is_ angry at himself, but if he fires into his stomach and lets death take its time, all people will talk about after is how much he had suffered. That’s all his aunt and his uncle and his cousin will be able to focus on, and he isn’t mad at them. He doesn’t want anything he does – the _last_ thing that he does – to bring them any burden or pain. But to go quick just seems like cheating, like he’s taking something he doesn’t deserve to take because he hasn’t _earned_ the right to take it.

But, Mother of _God_ , does he hate himself.

The spot he stands in is of safe distance from both his family and the farmer – he can make out the glow of lights from both houses, but not which rooms either source comes from. He can’t make out outlines, can’t see the reach of backyard trees, can’t hear the run of air conditioning units or muffled whispers of TVs. The ground is dry, and with the shield of the cornstalks, he doesn’t even have to sit down to not be seen. He does anyway, the gun tipping mercifully with him, knees pushing right into the near-dry dirt.

So he’ll put the barrel in his mouth, further back beyond his front teeth, maybe at the edge of his last molars. He’ll breathe it in, the musk of gun and bullet, coat it with his spit and _taste it_ , let it sit there for awhile, let those butterflies grow. Maybe at the last second he’ll push it back against his throat, gag and get it to angle upright enough to have full impact. He can do that. Theoretically.

His fingers caress the old browning body, sliding up and down like he’s trying to soothe the gun for what he’s about to make it do. His mouth waters in morbid anticipation that doesn’t come with a phantom craving taste, and he has to swallow before he can sigh. Loud – a punched exhale that makes his shoulders drop so violently and so quickly that it actually hurts – that’s what leaves his body.

The black hole opening of the gun waits under his eyes. He can give himself a count – one, two, three, just like they do in the movies before they do something they’re scared of but which ends up being spectacular. But that’s like a schedule, a time-limit, and he’s not doing this quickly. He can’t.

He casts another look up at the night sky, eyes moving straight to the random star. He licks his lips, wetting them with the hungry water in his mouth, and frowns.

“You’re dead.” He says it accusingly, exhaustion eating at his tone with the budding rage that grows from somewhere else. “You’re billions of miles away and you’re dead and I’m talking to you anyway.”

His fingers continue to skim up and down the gun.

“I just … can’t do this anymore.” It’s growing warm the movements of his hands, but his body is beginning to shiver from an unpresent cold. “I keep _seeing_ it, every night when I try to sleep. I close my eyes and she’s on the ground, and I wake up. I close my eyes again, and he’s on her, and she’s screaming for me to run. And I wake up. I close my eyes again, and-“ he chokes on a breath that gets caught in his chest anyway “-and his shoe is covered in her blood, and his hand is still holding her head, and she’s … she’s _gone. And I can’t wake up from that_.”

Bruce feels numb. Now. Then. All the times between. He lives his life and goes through the motions like each breath is a reassuring obligation. He’s so tired, so empty, and he stands on the other side of a glass wall that separates him from everyone else in the world. Seen and seeing, but … alone. There’s no one close to stand with him.

The gun trembles with another shiver that radiates through his fingers.

“I wrote my good-byes to my aunt and uncle – one for Jennifer, too. They’re on my pillow. I told them.” He blinks at the little star. “Wish I had someone to say good-bye to _me_ though.” A small laugh. “Stupid, huh?”

He returns his gaze to the dark opening of the gun.

 

* * *

 

 

Tony stands in the middle of a cornfield he’s never been in before, silent and frozen in a body-locking horror. Chest too tight, too much effort required for breathing.

He hadn’t been expecting a gun.

He’d seen the glimmer of something long and dark from the road, held against Banner’s side in a careless grip as he’d slipped out the backdoor of his house and toward the field. But he’d convinced himself it had been a trick of the light that had made it seem long, that it had really been just a flashlight or something that Banner hadn’t turned on yet.

His fingers tighten around the spiraled cord of Banner’s notebook, the slim metal cutting sharply into his palm.

Hell, he’d convinced himself that Bruce’s want for a farewell had meant that he’d been going on a trip with his family, or even running away in the dead of night, or something equally as boring and common and safe. That he’d come all the way out here to honestly just return the dropped notebook.

The sight of the gun makes him sick – squishes and tangles his insides, but it isn’t actually the nausea of surprise that’s getting him, because he isn’t surprised, despite his intentional denial.

 _“-and his shoes is covered in her blood,”_ Banner is whispering to the sky. Even though the moonlight isn’t that strong, Tony can see him shaking. _“-and his hand is still holding her head, and she’s … she’s gone. And I can’t wake up from that.”_

No one in school actually knows the story behind Bruce Banner, or knows why he lives with distant relatives instead of his parents.

Tony imagines a woman with dark brown hair and eyes the same color, just like Banner’s, smiling and laughing and holding a little boy.

But there are rumors.

 _“-on my pillow. I told them.”_ Banner is still talking, voice going low in a tone of guilt that Tony is uncomfortably familiar with.

And then-

_“Wish I had someone to say good-bye to me, though.”_

Oh, shit.

Even without the notebook, even without the gun, Tony can’t deny what he’s hearing.

“Stupid, huh?”

The horror that had held his body melts away as he watches Banner’s head drop back down to the gun. There’s no fear inside when he sees the muzzle disappear into the other boy’s mouth, watches the pale hands stroke slowly down to where he knows the trigger is waiting. It’s just an encompassing cold that sinks rapidly into his limbs, chilling his blood, surging up some sort of calm, mortified acceptance of what is going to happen.

He squeezes the spiral again, hand _burning_. His parents haven’t been home in months, and outside of school, the only person he really talks to is Jarvis. At night, in bed, there are hours of absolutely nothing.

Banner gags harshly, and somehow the burning in Tony’s hands enflames his feet, and without realizing it, he’s lunging forward.

_“Bruce!”_

 

* * *

 

 

_Then the traveller in the dark_

_Thanks you for your tiny sparks;_

_He could not see which way to go,_

_If you did not twinkle so._

 

_In the dark blue sky you keep,_

_And often through my curtains peep,_

_For you never shut your eye_

_T_ _ill the sun is in the sky._

 

_As your bright and tiny spark_

_Lights the traveller in the dark,_

_Though I know not what you are,_

_Twinkle, twinkle, little star._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **(optional) Bonus**   
>  _The story can be read as either finished as is, or with these additional pieces that follow the ending._
> 
>  
> 
> **(That night)**  
>  "...Stark? What ... what the hell are you doing at my house?"  
> "I. Uh. Huh. I have your uh, your notebook. Here. I have your notebook and, well ... I read this page and I, uh, heard what you said-."  
> "So? You came to, what, say good-bye?"  
> "... No."  
> "No?"  
> "No. I'm not saying good-bye to you, Bruce Banner. Good-byes mean you're okay with the person leaving, or you've accepted it, and I haven't. I'm not saying good-bye because I don't want you to go anywhere."  
> "You don't even fucking _know me_."  
>  "Exactly. If I say good-bye, I can't fix that.”
> 
> **(The next day)**  
>  "Bruce! There's a Tony here to give you a ride to school?"  
> "...What?"  
> "Why didn't you tell us you had made such a nice friend?"  
>  _"What?"_
> 
> **(1 week later)**  
>  "So ... we're friends now, right?"  
> "Yeah, Tony. We're friends."  
> "And I can _call you_ my friend? In public? To other people? I can introduce you to random strangers as My Buddy Bruce Banner?"  
>  "... If you want to."
> 
>  **(3 months later)**  
>  "Tony, Tony-."  
> "Shhh."  
> "Do friends kiss each other?"  
> "If they want to.”
> 
>  **(4 Months Later)**  
>  "How do you always know which star it is? There's like, billions of stars out there. That you can see, right now. How can you tell which one it is?"  
> Chuckling. "I don't know, I just can? I mean, it's smaller than the others around it, looks like it was just randomly thrown out there-."  
> "Bruce, they _all_ look like they were randomly thrown out there."
> 
>  **(Pre-Graduation)**  
>  "I'm not ever going to be ready to say goodbye to you, Bruce Banner."  
> "Hmmm."
> 
>  **(Post-Graduation)**  
>  "You kissed me!"  
> "Yep."  
> "On stage!"  
> "Yep."  
> "In front of everyone!"  
> "Well, you weren't believing my declarations of sworn love, B.B., so I had to get a little creative."  
> "People probably took _pictures_."  
>  "Oh, good! Then there will be physical proof so you can't convince yourself that you dreamt it up."
> 
>  **(1 year later)**  
>  "My mom."  
> "Uh... I think the joke is actually 'your mom', big guy.”  
> "Shut up. I meant 'my mom'. That's how I always know where the star is. My mom."  
> "... She talked to it, too?"  
> "Every night my dad was out of town. Me and her. We'd go out and tell it our stories of everything that had happened since the last time we spoke to it."
> 
>  **(1 1/2 years later)**  
>  "Bruce?"  
> "Yeah?"  
> "You don't still think about ... doing that, do you?"  
> "... Not when I'm around you. It's ... muted. When I'm around you."
> 
>  **(4 years later)  
> **  
>  (Afghanistan)  
> "Hey, look, Bruce. I got a glow in my chest. All blue and bright and ... glowy. Like a star. Oh. Oh! Oh, hey, Bruce! I'm like your star! Like ... your Tony Star. I'm a Tony Star. You can talk to me now."  
> "Bruce?"  
> "... Bruce?”


	3. Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt: "fury"**

* * *

 

 

The cold bit at his hands like licking fire of heat too intense to register, numbing his nerves as it stabbed at them, the skin lost to the confusing sensation to the brink of uncertain agony, hovering at the precipice with only the need of the panic of his mind to push it over.

Bruce stared at them.

Hands. Large hands. Strong (freezing) fingers, thick and long and dangerous. Just the right length to wrap around a neck, just the right weight to form a reddened bruise, just the right size to ball together to make a fist to smash-

The streets were brightly lit and eerily quiet, the majority of the population lost to the time of night and the snow that fell from the sky in a downpour of powdered, unrelenting drops. Small gathered mounds of it kicked against the thin material of his worn-out shoes, improper for the weather and uncaring, the scuffed grey-white tops shining with wetness that seeped into toes he couldn’t feel anymore. His glasses were fogged, useless entirely for sight that wasn’t his hands – it was his feet that carried him, tired and dying though they were, toward the glass doors at the end of the block. His feet didn’t have eyes, couldn’t see the people that weren’t there to avoid them, needed his eyes that couldn’t look away from his hands-

_Fuck. Fuck. I’m so tired._

His feet stopped moving, his hands suddenly brighter –Bruce looked up, blinking rapidly as the skin of his hands gave way to the faint, blurred reflection of himself in the glass doors of the coffee shop.

The coffee shop.

Without thinking, he was already reaching for the chipped handle, pulling it toward his chest and exposing his body to the rush of warmth from the inside. His fingers on the handle, gripping with a measured tightness, a safe tightness, unthreatening and unfocused-

“Bruce?”

He had stepped in, he realized, flinched slightly as the bell above the door clang cheerfully as the door pressed itself shut, free of his surprised grasp. Darcy stood in front of him, head cocked to the side as her hand rested against her aproned hip. She looked pretty tonight, as she always did, wisps of her raven hair brushing against her pale shoulders from where they had escaped her bun, the glint of the lights on her glasses matched by the glint of them on the small plate of her Collar (red today. Darcy was nothing if not easily bored. Bruce envied Jane and Thor very little when it came to the colorful Omega). The smile that was normally on her face when she greeted him was gone tonight, replaced with a firm straight look that emptied his stomach.

“You smell like blood,” she said flatly.

His flinch was more violent this time.

Because his hands were large. Strong. He knew how to grip, how long to hold, how much pressure to apply. How to convey a warning, how to promise a _threat_ , how to let some overreaching Alpha know they had _crossed the fucking line-_

Darcy was washing his hands.

Bruce blinked, looking down at the green cloth moving efficiently yet gently across his skin, noting for the first time that his hands were shaking, the barest of trembles cradled by the younger woman’s smaller palms. His fingers were red beneath the movements, nipped raw from the cold and clean from before. They didn’t look strange anymore, attached to him and wrong; something inside of his chest settled at each cleansing sweep of Darcy’s rag, the chilled warmth of its dampness waking. Her hands were gentle as they held and worked over his, kind and unafraid as they always were.

Bruce swallowed. “Darcy-.”

“You’re freezing,” she cut off, giving his hands one last vigorous rub before slowly letting them go. She tossed up a sharp glance, blue eyes flashing. “Whatever you did, I don’t doubt even a little that it was deserved. But there’s an Omega here tonight, and he’s a little skittish, and the scent would’ve freaked him out. So you’re going to go sit by the bookshelf, because that vent is spewing out the heat like no one’s business, and I’m going to get you a hot Mint Galaxy. Loki’s working tonight. It’ll be great. And a sandwich,” she added as an afterthought, eyes narrowing. “I don’t care what time it is, you need food. You’re the smallest Alpha in the entire damned city, Bruce. I swear.” She shoved him then, gently, in the direction of his intended seat, disappearing behind the counter and the doors they guarded before he could protest (not that protesting ever did any good).

His hands were clean, warming up and prickling in protest of the revival. His fingers flexed automatically, but it wasn’t like before. He looked at them and they were just fingers, pale and tired fingers attached to pale and shaking hands and that was it. Nothing more. He turned them over, stretched his tendons out. Nothing more.

He sat.

The coffee shop was quaint, arranged properly enough for it be referred to as “cozy” instead of “cramped”, complete with a rich color pallet of browns and golds and a fake fireplace that never turned off. It wasn’t the sort of place anyone would expect to be open twenty-four hours, as high-end as it looked, but after Thor had taken care of the first two robbery attempts, and Loki had handled a handful of drunken Betas no one had heard from again, the shop was without issue. It became a safe-haven of sorts, for people of any orientation who just preferred late hours and needed a public place to reassure themselves that they could still have the outside. And the coffee was good. Good coffee always gathered people no matter the hour.

The weather seemed to have diminished the usual gathering, however. There were only a few other people scattered about, quiet and contemplative against the snow. Bruce sought them automatically, skimming over each hunched form and their coffee, their threat level – the old Alpha in the back, quiet and fragile-boned, was a common fixture, homeless and weakened and uninterested for it. A Beta by the door, fixated on a laptop – another Beta three tables behind him, staring out the window with a cup in her hand, loose-limbed and content. An Omega-

Bruce stopped. While the shop was open to all orientations, Omegas at this hour were rare, most kept home by a protective Alpha, the rest fearful of the streets. But there he was, hunched over the table closest to the counter, pale hands wrapped possessively around a thick red mug he was intently staring into. He was small, not quite stereotypical Omega size, but smaller than Bruce’s own unimpressive Alpha height, wrapped in an obnoxious orange poncho Bruce recognized as Darcy’s that made his raven hair all the more shockingly apparent.

He could smell the distress from here, a growl forming low in his throat at the mere taste of it.

A plate clipped onto the table in front of him; Darcy’s face popped up, cutting the Omega from sight. “Banner, do not. I will seriously end you right here.” A large, steaming cup of minty aroma joined the plate. “Seriously. He? He does not need your Alpha aggression right now. So _reign it in and eat your damn sandwich_.” Any other time he would have appreciated Darcy’s snarl.

Alpha aggression. His hands. It was like melting.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and picked it up. Rye bread, warmed turkey and cheese and bacon, unhealthy. His hands were shaking again. “Yeah.”

“Such a white knight,” Darcy snorted, brushed her hand over his head before disappearing again.

The Omega should be close to the door. The level of distress he was pushing out should make him want to be as close to the exit as possible, and yet he was seated in the middle of the back, close to a kitchen that held no exit but which did hold an Alpha of the property. Bruce risked another glance; he was tense, ready to spring, as if he felt torn between wanting to be one direction but knowing he should go another-

In his pocket, for the first time in hours, Bruce’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out without thinking, dropping it to the table as his fingers quaked under the pressure.

 

_Betty – 1:24 AM_

_Are you at Asgard?_

Betty. He choked on a bite. Betty, Betty, Betty. The phone buzzed against the wood.

 

_Betty – 1:24 AM_

_Bruce. It’s ok. I’m not angry_

His hands, searing and tight and filled with fury, wrapped around the Alpha’s throat, locked and unrelenting, coated with a forceful splash of blood from where he’d punched the man in the mouth. The bulging of the eyes, the pitiful begging gasps of breaths, the useless flailing as he _would not submit-_

 

_Betty – 1:27 AM_

_Bruce. Please._

_Betty – 1:27 AM_

_You’re scaring me._

He stood up without a thought, staring down at the screen even as he reached for his wallet. _‘You’re scaring me.’_ She should be scared. His _hands._

He felt it, then. A questioning, burning feeling sweeping across his shoulders, down his neck, back up and over his face – he looked up on reflex, fingers on the bills, to a set of scrutinizing, sparking brown eyes overlaid with exhaustion and fear and the unmistakable burst of intelligence he was so familiar with in his own eyes. The Omega was watching him, not with caution but with curiosity, head tilted just slightly to the side as if Bruce were an equation and not a person.

_Studying him._

It brought Bruce up short.

It wasn’t that intelligent Omegas were non-existent; in spite of what society liked to claim, _person_ came before _orientation_ , and intelligence was born. But an Omega whose intelligence was _educated_ , learned and aimed and focused – times were changing, and equal rights were fast becoming a thing, but _that_ … that was rare enough to be a myth. And yet this man was looking at him in a manner that suggested genius beyond anything even he was capable of understanding. It was as if he wasn’t standing anymore, wasn’t in the café, wasn’t on a physical field at all.

_What in the absolute fucking hell-_

The phone buzzed again against the wood of the table, the message highlighting across the screen, dragging his eyes from the Omega to the flashing words.

 

_Betty – 1:30 AM_

_Come back._

 

 

He glanced back up.

The table was empty.

The Omega was gone.

 


	4. Acoustics and Drums

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt: "momentary"**

* * *

 

 

Tony doesn’t normally come out to the bar alone. And on the rare times that he _does_ , it never stays that way for long.

 

He has their numbers programmed into his phone, none of them on speed dial but used often enough that they may as well be. Hammer, whose physical blows are nothing to write home about but who can land enough verbal humiliation to make him see himself differently in the mirror the next day. Tiberius, whose insults have lost their sting after decades of hearing them over and over again, but whose hand is heavy enough with a cane that his skin often cracks open from the weight of the blows. Killian, his (former) therapist, who likes to tie him up and gag him and cover his eyes with a blindfold before spending hours using his body and railing him with so much emotional turmoil that for _days_ after, he’ll hate himself and every breath he takes to keep living. And then there’s Brock, gathered during a momentary lapse of sanity that seems to be neverending, who does it all on a level that none of the others can ever hope to reach, who Tony hates more than he hates Howard but always wants on his skin, in his head, in his body.

 

Except tonight.

 

The waitress slides his shot of whiskey across the table and Tony’s hands are shaking so violently that he keeps them in his lap and doesn’t pick it up. His phone is tucked into his pocket, vibrating against his leg continuously with a barrage of increasingly impatient text messages that probably all contain very promising threats that can easily make his head turn, yet he doesn’t reach for it, either. The old, familiar buzz is shrouding his head in suffocating static, his skin tingling in steadily growing need – sensations he can silence with just one swipe of his finger across the screen.

 

But the prospect of calling any of them (of calling _Brock_ ) doesn’t soothe the non-physical prickling, makes his stomach churn with a miserable, hollowed wave of emptiness that he doesn’t understand. Rope burns, paddle bruises, choking on too-deep gags – it releases all of that, puts his feet on the floor, keeps him from wandering off a misplaced cliff or into lanes of heavy, angry traffic. He loves it, needs it, but just the idea of accepting it from any of those hands right now –

 

 _‘You’re screwed up, Stark,’_ his mind assures him, and Tony already knows that. It’s why Tiberius kicks him out of bed whenever they’re done, why Killian had realized there’s no value in Tony as a patient, why when Tony says no and Brock just sighs in disappointment that Tony can’t bear. Why his mother hasn’t called him in almost six months. _‘They’re giving you their attention, their time, and you’re just what now, ignoring them because you want something different? What more do you think you could possibly deserve to need?’_

 

“You’ve been staring at that drink for a while.”

 

Tony jumps at the sound of the light, unexpected voice, hands automatically coming up only to smack against the underside of the table in their journey, blocked. His eyes instinctively stay trained to his glass, even though it’s a strange man, and not Tiberius or Brock standing over him, shoulders tense in an echo of expectation of a strike.

 

“Is it going to do a trick?”

 

The voice is filled with a humored, teasing tone, easily heard through the thrum of the intentionally seductive music even though it’s so low. Tony’s skin lights up anew at the rumble of it, the prickling feeling swirling away to become more of a hesitantly excited dance as his fingers tangle together on his lap. It’s been long enough since the introduction of Brock into his life that he’s forgotten the sound of flirting, the thrill of a new interaction, and the arrival of it makes his stomach flip warningly.

 

He feels it when the other man steps closer, hyperaware of the closer proximity of foreign body heat, the shadow that falls across his table and the way it trembles in the bar’s twisting lights. Pale fingers slowly encroach into his vision, sliding across the table and stopping just inches from his drink. They don’t tap, or flex, or show any signs of impatience – they just sit there, like they want to be seen, to be known – thin (not as thin as Hammer’s), calloused (not like Killian or Tiberius’ smooth skin), calm (not like Brock’s that constantly twitch in eagerness to wrap around Tony’s throat).

 

“You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.” The playful note is dialed down, words softer still, washing over Tony like a cool sprinkle of rain. “If I’m bothering you, I can leave. If you’re waiting for someone else-.”

 

“I’m not!” Tony blurts out, and then immediately bites his tongue with a cringe. Christ, he sounds pathetic, almost needy (Brock hates it when he sounds needy-)

 

“Then do you think you can look at me?” The soft voice implores, the fingers still not moving. “Please?”

 

Just like that, with that one word, Tony lifts his eyes.

 

His mind and his body can’t come to an agreement on Hammer or Tiberius or Killian or Brock, pushing against each other and leaving him dazed and in this bar alone, but they both fall silent at the sight of the man standing above him. There’s no sophisticated air about him (his green t-shirt and khaki pants are almost laughable) no overpowering dominance that makes Tony feel immediately insignificant and owned (the man is almost the same height and build as Tony), but his eyes. Brown orbs that flash strangely in the light, gazing down at him warmly with an appreciative glint that isn’t predatory. It’s so different from everything that Tony has worn that a keen, almost inaudible but sharp in his dry throat, escapes him.

 

The man’s lips quirk up into a little, soft smile. “Will you tell me your name?”

 

Brock hadn’t asked that until hours into early morning, when Tony had been breathless and burning and curled into the tightest ball possible on the floor he’d been ordered to. And even then, he’d put him in his phone as _‘worthless cumpig’_.

 

“Tony,” he gasps out. “My name’s Tony.” He slides his lips back together before any more words come out – it’s annoying when he talks too much. People hate it. He doesn’t want this man to find him annoying, to walk away.

 

But the man’s smile grows. “Tony,” he repeats. It sounds like a purr in his voice. “I’m Bruce,” he returns. “I’m sorry for just coming over here like this and startling you. It’s just.” Those eyes flash again, and even though the bar is too dark for it to be the case, Tony is almost certain the man can see the ring of still-dark bruises Brock’s left on his neck _(‘stop, please, I can’t breathe. You promised you wouldn’t make it so I couldn’t breathe’)._ “You look like you need someone.”

 

Bruce’s feet don’t move, but he seems to get closer as he speaks, so warm that Tony shivers. The static in his brain is fading away, the frantic need smoothing out. “Yes, sir,” he whispers, licking his lips to wet them in a movement the eyes follow. _“Please."_ Fuck. Needy. "Please."

 

Bruce’s sharp intake of breath at his admission, the way his fingers finally twitch on the table, kills the static in Tony's brain completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I cut out a huge chunk to this because it lead into a much longer story. Therefore, the urge to actually _write_ the much longer story is almost overwhelming. I will refrain, even though what's going on with this Bruce is interesting as hell and this Tony is one of my favorites ever and Bruce really just wants to tell Tony, "Good boys like you don't deserve to get hurt like this".)


	5. Hypertrophic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt: "blue"**

* * *

 

 

_“You know, you’re not so bad at this romance stuff,” Bruce allowed, willing his face to (for once, damn it!) not flush at the confession._

_He must have failed, however, because Tony released a bark of genuinely pleased laughter, his arm tightening around Bruce’s waist as the reflections of the flames of the candles danced on the lenses of his sunglasses._

_“Holy shit, baby,” he kissed teasingly into Bruce’s neck. “I try.”_

 

* * *

 

 

It’s actually the _sound_ of his bone cracking apart inside of his body that wakes Bruce up.

There’s a heavy, muffled weight rolling around in his head, and he has that delayed second or two to blink his eyes against the strange, unfamiliar shapelessness of his surroundings before the answering pain arrives. Sharp, impaling – bursting in frantic, fevered white light across his gaze, lava licking along his skin from underneath it, sprouting out from the middle finger of his right hand.

Against the pain, his teeth grind and clench out of forcefully-learned instinct, but even that cannot silence the whimper the cuts out of his throat.

No matter how much he’d tried to learn how, he’s never been able to keep quiet at a surprise hit.

“Oh, good evening, Doctor Banner.”

Bruce can’t place a face to the low, cheerful voice – can barely register its words over the increasingly louder sounds of his own breathing. In his blurred vision, one of the shapeless blobs moves enough to catch a shadow, and he flinches as something cold taps against the side of his neck.

“I’m not quite ready for you to be awake yet.”

The stab of a needle into his skin should probably be painful.

But darkness sweeps through him with a chilled rush, and he falls into it at the farewell crack of another bone.

 

* * *

 

 

_“That! That right there! I like that!”_

_The silver tip of Tony’s stylus tapped unexpectedly at Bruce’s nose, but instead of flinching, Bruce just went cross-eyed to look at it._

_“Like what?”_

_The stylus slid down to press gently against his lips. “That. That little smirk thing that isn’t a smirk.”_

_“Smirk … you mean my smile?”_

_The stylus fell away, and before Bruce could truly recognize the spark in Tony’s eyes, the other man’s lips were on his, light and playful._

_“Yeah.” Whispered against him; Bruce shivered. “I mean your fucking smile.”_

 

* * *

 

 

This time, the breaking crack and the white-hot pain are together, skipping hand-in-hand, coming to him in the reunion of old friends he’d never wanted to see again.

He doesn’t open his eyes as the scream rips out of his mouth from the deepest part of his chest, its burning of his throat almost rivaling the agony pulsing out in booms from his ankle. There’s more of it, the pain, coming from different lines all throughout his body – some faint, others louder, a few even trembling with sobs in old hopeless memory that make his stomach churn amidst it all.

For a moment, he’s back in that house, crumpled on the floor as his limbs twitch in continuous, futile effort to get him up, his lungs trying to breathe in deep enough to scream out in time for someone to come and keep the light on in his mother’s suffering eyes.

“- this belongs to you?”

It croons in between the fractures of the scream, oozing into his senses in the same old manner of hateful words and cold threats. Still unrecognizable, but enough that it triggers his urge to be silent – enough that he swallows the last trails of the scream within himself like one large, hard gulp of carbonated water.

And opens his eyes.

“Impressive. Very high pain tolerance. I can almost understand what it is that you see in him.”

It’s as if he’s still underwater, but closer to the surface than before. The shapelessness has defined itself to harder edges and softer detail, the barest hints of actual color – but the small dot of burning red shining like a beacon in the middle of swirled greys and greens is easily discernable.

“Shame, isn’t it, that an honorable man like him is here on my table instead of a devil like you.”

The words are not a question and they are not aimed at him, but the staticy image of the person’s left arm extends itself toward his unnaturally turned, throbbing ankle, fingers spreading apart like the mechanism of a claw machine, encircling and grasping without hesitation.

The hand wrenches his ankle to the point of audible, crisp snapping, and just like that, his foot is no longer attached to the rest of his body through bone.

Ears ringing from the sound, Bruce doesn’t let a noise escape his lips, the pain leaking out instead through the tears he can’t blink away fast enough, traveling free and quick and large down his face.

The fingers massage callously as the person speaks again to the red dot.

“Perhaps you would be interested in helping me change that, Mr. Stark.”

Bruce’s body shudders and brokenly creaks – _Tony._

 

* * *

 

 

_Tony’s fingers were made of calluses and heavy touches, but his hands were light and gentle as they traced along the raised marks on his body, as if, for the first time since Bruce had known him, Tony was uncertain. Scared. It didn’t feel right, that type of vulnerability on such an eccentric, confident man._

_“You’ve got some Latin on you.” Warm skin skimmed in arch along his lower back, following the words of the tattoo. “Perfer et obdura-.”_

_“Perfer et obdura dolor hic tibi proderit olim,” Bruce recited over him, shivering slightly at the touch. He licked his lips, pushing his head further into the hard softness of the mattress. “Be patient and tough. Someday this pain will be useful to you.”_

_“It looks new.”_

_“Six or so months old, now.”_

_The hands strayed, carefully moving higher – belt lash, shattered window, surgical scar to repair a bone that hadn’t healed properly. He rolled obediently when Tony’s hands slipped to his belly, the damned automatic flinch at the position stopping dead at the tormented look on the other man’s face, the confused confusion in his eyes._

_With a surge of confidence of his own, Bruce caught Tony’s fingers as they reached for a line of cigarette burns that danced along his ribs. “They’re just scars, Tony,” he whispered, although they were anything but. “Not even that many.”_

_The fingers in his squeezed slightly, before they were lifted up to unsmiling lips._

_“Too many,” Tony murmured in response, quiet._

 

* * *

 

 

More bones are twisted, more bones are snapped – there are creaks and pops and whispered wet slidings of things inside his body that are losing their place. It’s been minutes, hours, maybe even days.

Bruce doesn’t close his eyes again.

He’s stopped feeling the sharp edge of the pain’s knife, his body already too full of holes for it to hit anywhere new. He’s reached a level of numb that he hasn’t achieved in so many years, too high on the pain to feel it at all. Instead, all his mind can do is think about anything, everything else.

Like how it’s supposed to be _Tony_ here, on this slick wooden table, body nothing more than a twisted, bleeding metaphor for a drunken prom night car wreck.

“He’s responsible for this, you know.”

The shapeless shadow is a person is a man with handsome features ruined by his own rage. He busts Bruce’s body but speaks to him with the gentleness usually reserved for children, destroyed smile always in place whenever he leans over so that Bruce can see him.

“He’s only ever shown you his kindness, his generosity. You’ve only ever known his smile. You don’t know what his hands have done, how much blood is on them, how many lives they have personally taken. You’ve just let them touch you, no questions asked.”

The morning after the first time Bruce had let himself go into Tony’s bed, the older man had -

“He’s broken families. He’s orphaned _children_. He’s left wives crying over the bullet-ridden bodies of their husbands without any remorse to give.”

The morning after the first time Bruce had let himself go into Tony’s bed, the older man had freaked out more than Bruce himself, pacing back and forth between the bed and the door, half-dressed and agitated -

“I have seen that man laugh with his face still spattered with the brain matter of someone else.”

The morning after the first time Bruce had let himself go into Tony’s bed, the older man had freaked out more than Bruce himself, pacing back and forth between the bed and the door, half-dressed and agitated, but freezing at the sight of Bruce’s open eyes, clearly lost.

“He made me watch as he put a gun to my father’s head, made me listen to my father _beg_ for his life, for _mercy_ , before he _pulled the fucking trigger anyway_. Made me drag my father’s still-warm body from the street while he laughed at some _joke_ his bodyguard said. That is the man Tony Stark truly is.”

 _‘I’m not a good person,’ Tony had muttered. ‘And you are. You’re so good, so pure, so fucking nice that it makes my chest ache. I mean, Jesus Christ, you cried during_ sex _.’_

“Do you even care?”

_Bruce, too startled at the whirlwind confession, had automatically stammered out, ‘Fuck you.’_

“Are you truly just as heartless as he is? Has he managed to poison you?”

_Tony had sneered. ‘What, don’t like being called out for being an emotional sap?’_

“Perhaps when Stark comes to exchange himself for you, I’ll keep you both. Rid the world of two devils instead of just the one.”

 _Bruce had stumbled out of the bed, shaking in that innate fear, but alive with something entirely different. ‘Emotional sap? You held me after you_ came _, Tony – held me all goddamn night!’_

Bruce looks the man in the eye, lets his throat make enough noise to choke out – “Fuck you.”

 

* * *

 

 

_“Be patient and tough. Someday this pain will be of use to you.”_

_Tony’s mouth, hot and wicked and wet on his chest._

_“You’ve been fucking patient. And you’ve been tough enough.”_

_Bruce whined, throwing his head back into the pillows as Tony changed the angle of his thrusts to hit just the right spot. “Tony.” He reached down, desperate, snatching at strands of Tony’s hair and tugging them to pull him up. “T-Tony, please-.”_

_Tony surged up, biting at his lips, kissing him harshly, but his hands-_

_His hands held Bruce like he was treasured. Like he was important. Like Tony didn’t want to leave so much as a bruise; didn’t want to hurt him at all._

_“You don’t have to be patient anymore. I’m here, baby. I’ve got this. I’ll bury a-anyone who tries to put a hand on you. I swear. I- Bruce, fuck, **Bruce** -.”_

 

* * *

 

 

The only real color in the room is the red light from the video camera that hasn’t shut off since he’d screamed.

But, for just the fraction of a second, Bruce swears he sees a shimmer of a gut-wrenchingly familiar blue just before the man leans over him with something silver and shiny in his hand.

“I was going to take out your tongue, so that you wouldn’t be able to talk,” he says casually, as if there is anything more he can do to reach the plain Bruce is on. As if there is anything more he can do to increase the pain, to try for fear. “But I want you to tell Mr. Stark that you blame him for this happening to you. For doing this to you. And I think you will, once you finally see him. Once you realize that you cannot get out of this room under your own power. That he’s broken you.”

The object comes closer – the thin, sharp edge shows it to be a knife. Surgical. Clean. New.

Different than broken bones.

“I noticed your scars,” the man continues, tone going pleasant. “It’s a quaint little collection – very simple, very easy to read. Not as detailed as most others wear, but it does tell your story.” The man turns the knife in his fingers, the metal glinting in the light and stinging Bruce’s eyes. “Stark hasn’t given you any marks – it would have ruined his disguise to you, I assume. But I thought, given the current circumstances and his influence on you that you show no desire to be rid of, that I should write in this chapter of your life for you.”

The knife comes down to rest at the corner of Bruce’s eye.

“Nothing neat,” the man whispers, and it sounds like it’s to himself. “Nothing clean, nothing straight. A mess. Telling. Something for everyone to see and understand. Something he won’t be able to hide from-.”

**_CRACK_ **

Warmth, hot and wet, splashes across Bruce’s face.

Above him, the man gasps, jaw trembling with lips trying form words that are having trouble trying to get out.

The knife trembles loosely next to his eye.

“-S-some-thing. Ho-horrible so he’ll-he’ll always… see-.”

Again, the shimmer of that blue catches Bruce’s eye. Only this time, it’s more – bigger, larger, doesn’t fade away like the dream it had been. It gets closer, closer until it’s solid, no longer fuzz but beaming out of a thick clear casing that’s in the center of-

Bruce doesn’t cry out when Tony’s face, hard and impassive, comes into view. Doesn’t sob in relief of his presence, doesn’t even feel relief that he’s here.

Doesn’t flinch as Tony raises a gleaming black revolver and puts it against the back of the man’s head.

**_CRACK_ **

Another burst of the hot wetness splatters on his face at the same moment that a hole appears in the center of the man’s forehead.

The knife slips harmlessly from his eye and clatters off the table and onto the floor.

The man topples down with it.

 

* * *

 

 

_“You don’t flinch from me anymore when I touch you.”_

_Bruce didn’t say anything to that, just sort of shrugged his shoulders as he stared out at the waves lapping lazily at the beach. The morning was only just beginning to wake up, the sun just starting to reach out, and the sands were empty of people. Peaceful. Wonderful._

_Tony’s elbow bumped lightly against his._

_“Thank you.”_

_“Don’t thank me for that.” Bruce shook his head, letting his body lean enough to nudge Tony back. “I didn’t do anything.”_

_“Yeah you did.” There was something different in Tony’s voice, something not usually there. Curious, Bruce tossed him a side-glance, only to see that the other man, too, was watching the waves._

_Bruce didn’t look away._

_Tony licked his lips, sucking in a breath so deep that his shoulders lifted. “They say that you can’t … love someone unless you love yourself first,” he began, low and fast. “And that … that’s bullshit, you know? It is. Complete bullshit, because I? Me? Anthony Edward Stark? I don’t love myself, Bruce. I wake up every morning hating myself for breathing and taking oxygen from someone else. I have never loved myself. But … but you.”_

_Bruce felt thrumming in his chest as Tony then exhaled, fidgeting as he always did when he was nervous. This was different, this was so different, this was_ new _._

_“I love you so much that … that I forget what hating myself feels like. I can forget that I hate myself at all.”_

_Inwardly, Bruce was flying, his feet so far from the ground that he didn’t even fear falling. Love. Holy shit. Tony said … love_.

_Outwardly – “Where’d you get that one from?” He asked slyly, smiling a little as the tension in Tony’s shoulders visibly dropped, just like that._

_“… Paraphrased the hell out of it from Tumblr. Shut up, don’t judge me. I’m having a moment.”_

_He reached out, then, snagging Bruce’s hand, and Bruce allowed it, tangling their fingers._

_“Sap.”_

 

* * *

 

 

Warm, gentle softness against his face, carefully wiping away the drying blood.

“Bruce.”

Tony’s eyes, beautiful and filled with tears, so close to his.

“I’m sorry. God, I’m so, so sorry. This is my fault. This is me. I should have told you, I’m so sorry.”

The blue light of the arc reactor in his chest, shining and healthy – Tony has a gun in his hand. Tony isn’t here to replace him on the table. Tony is safe.

Tony’s made Bruce safe.

“You’re going to be okay, baby. I’m going to get you out of here, going to find you the best fucking doctor to fix this, fix you up, and then you can leave if you want, I’ll understand – fuck, I already understand, baby – Bruce, I do, just let me get you someplace safe first and get you healthy and then you can do whatever you want, I swear it-.”

Bruce lets himself make noise again, wills there to be no cry or whimper to break Tony’s heart as his tongue flexes to form his words.

“I love you.”

It burns his throat.

But it stops his lover’s ridiculous promises to let Bruce leave, makes his eyes go impossibly wider, dulls back the pain that, with the threat gone, wants to be heard again.

“Tony,” he whispers again. “I love you.”

The other man lets out a spurt of laughter that sounds like the beginnings of a sob, hastily catching his bottom lip between his teeth as more tears gather in his eyes. Bruce wants to say more, knows that Tony needs to hear more, but right now he just wants- “C’mere.”

Shaking fingers slip into his hair, the hitching in Tony’s breath still too close to crying, but he’s leaning in, close enough that the emptiness in Brue begins to fill. Their foreheads touch, Tony leaning over his body of broken bones and deep, bleeding bruises like the protective shelter he wants to be. And Bruce breathes him in, shares his oxygen and the putrid scent of the blood that covers them both, and finally lets his eyes close.


	6. The First Half

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt: "illuminate"**

* * *

 

 

The morning of the twelve-year anniversary, Bruce wakes up empty.

Which is understandable, because he had gone to bed empty, too.

The cotton sheets wrapped around his body feel the same as they always do, worn down to almost air but still scratchy against his skin as they slide along bumps and hairs and scars. The pillow beneath his head is just as flat and stale-fever warm as ever, barely elevating his head from the single standard mattress that’s spent these past twelve years and longer with him, helping to start him on these days.

For a few long minutes that are both denial and not, he just lays there, wrapped in a poor attempt at mummification and still, eyes tracing over the diagonal lines of his drawn, off-white blinds. The sunlight that sneaks between the cracks is soft and hazy, bathing his chipping white walls in early shades of jaundice yellow that make his stomach roll and then close off. The lazy rays touch the blue of his sheets like they’re trying to escape back into the sky and have mistaken them for it, but he doesn’t feel the warmth. Like he’s up too high, close enough to the sun that he’s chilled by space but still too close to the Earth to freeze.

Twelve years. That’s, in theory, a long time.

It’s like he’s lived twelve minutes.

Twelve minutes in this bed. Twelve minutes in this room. Twelves minutes since he’s stood, clothed and shoed and anxious. Twelve minutes since a rushed breakfast of plain toast and tap-warm water. Twelve minutes since she’d adjusted his backpack, kissed his forehead, and whispered that they had to be quick and quiet. Twelve minutes since they’d almost made it. Twelve minutes since his father had crashed through the front door, snarling in an entirely different kind of rage.

The clatter of a plastic cup on the kitchen floor cuts across the morning silence so sharply that Bruce can’t help but flinch, twitching violently inside of his tight, soft wrappings.

There’s a brief second of quiet, and then the cup rolls along the floor – skitters, skips … kicked. There’s a shuffle, and then sharp, hollow crashing as a handful more hit the floor.

Bruce’s feet are on the carpet in an instinctive instant, arms moving of their own accord to expertly unwrap himself from his sheet, shoulders going tense.

His mother had loved those plastic cups. They’d had their collection of glassware for whenever there had been company or holiday dinners, but the plastic dishes had always been for average-day use. She’d always grin and say that life was way too short to be so formal all of the time.

Over the slowed muffled rolling of the cups on the linoleum, he hears the unmistakable sound of the bottom of a half-full bottle of whiskey coming to a heavy rest on the kitchen table.

His eyes close.

The twelve-year anniversary. Just like the eleven-year anniversary. Just like the ten, and the nine, and all the way to the one. They all had the same date in common – they all had the exact same significant time. What number they have been or are doesn’t matter when the calendar gives the right day and the clock’s hands are in their correct spots. They are all the exact same. They all play out the same.

The dark gold of the doorknob shimmers a bit from the sunlight as he studies it. For instance, on every anniversary, his hand has been the one to twist that knob, to connect his room to everything outside of it.

It’s as cold as ever when he touches it – the kitchen remains free of new noises – but it moves with the ease of melting butter when he rotates his wrist to loosen its hatch.

For instance, on every anniversary, the small hallway is peaceful. Completely empty of all but him and time-faded pictures framed in dirty, fractured glass.

“… most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my life.”

The mumbled fragment comes from the kitchen – it always comes from the kitchen.

Bruce steps from the doorway – this anniversary is just like any other anniversary.

For instance, when he turns the corner, his father is standing in the kitchen, drunk on morning whiskey and visibly trembling in his fury.

For instance, there’s still a nauseating flutter of anticipating butterflies in his stomach at the sight of the belt wrapped tightly around the older man’s hand, twelve years or one.

“ _You_ ,” his father growls, reading from the same old script. “Get the fuck over here.”

 

* * *

 

 

High school textbooks have old sepia photos of those hopeful 1950s ads – spreads of pages dedicated to nothing but those glossy images. Newspaper clippings, billboards, signs that had hung in shop windows.

_“Look good for when you find your Soulmate!”, “Ladies - embarrassed by your Words? You won’t be with this special cream!”, “John thought he would have to be happy with his girlfriend Margaret of three years, until he met Ruth and she said his Words! Have faith in your Soulmate!”, “Unhappy? Don’t be! Your Soulmate will fix all of the problems you have with yourself, but until then, try Huya!”_

Always with added images of people from the time, reading those clippings themselves or smiling widely at those signs. Happy. Trusting. Believing.

The photos are the only relatively carefree, romantic part of the textbooks’ entire Soulmate section.

 

* * *

 

 

In his entire life, Bruce has never encountered another sound quite like it.

Hollow and hot and hard and so fiercely, chillingly terrifying. Metallic, maybe like the sound of blood if you’re swimming in it.

_WHOOSH_

The heavy metal of the belt’s buckle comes down hard and fast against the back of his right hip.

He doesn’t scream – he doesn’t have a chance to.

_WHOOSH_

The buckle rips into the middle of his right shoulder blade.

“Fucking worthless piece of shit!”

_WHOOSH_

His fingers clutch tightly to the edge of the kitchen counter as the buckle smacks just above the previous hit.

_WHOOSH_

A matching lick to the opposite side.

“Think you’re something special. Think you deserve to be standing here. Worth my time, worth my money.”

_WHOOSH_

This one reaches too far over, eager, slicing into the edges of the left side of his gut – he bites his lip as hard as he can. Thankful that the continued ranting covers the sound of the small, short whine he can’t hold back.

“Should have taken care of you before – before she got so damn attached – before she got so damn –“ WHOOSH “-angry!”

Every anniversary is the same. For instance, the heated numbness of impact is already beginning to rise up to coat his skin.

_WHOOSH_

The buckle hits against his tailbone, accompanied by a growl, and then an unmoving pause.

For instance, the smack to that bone is always the last born of mindless rage and the overwhelming need to hurt hurt hurt-

His father’s free hand, large and hot and coated with alcoholic stench, cups around the back of his neck and pushes down – hard and dominating – forcing Bruce’s head against the counter and therefore stretching out and arching (exposing utterly) the top middle of his back.

The fingers tighten.

For instance-

The belt makes an entirely different sound when it’s held so tightly, brought down so rapidly, each strike nearly on top of the first, over and over and over and over across the span of his of his upper back, lashing out over old scars in sadistic hope of making new ones. Seven long, hard, sharp strikes-

**R E B E C C A**

He’s completely numb when the belt clatters to the floor with an innocent, floppy clink, warm and without and with too much pain.

His father’s fingers let of his neck to snag into his hair, abruptly pulling him up-

“It’s all your fucking fault.”

-and slamming him back down, head into the counter.

 

* * *

 

 

Of course Bruce has seen his Words.

**Hey, big guy, look over here, look at me – LOOK AT ME**

Written along his back in thick blocky lettering. Excited. Panicked. Something in between, maybe.

He’s seen them backwards, in the reflection of the cloudy mirror in his bathroom – has watched them go through four anniversaries, has watched them become misshapen and lost to the hatred of the belt.

There’s one photo of them as they had been made to be, untarnished by belonging to him, on Betty’s old Samsung flip-phone. Low-resolution and slightly blurred.

He hasn’t looked at it in years.

 

* * *

 

 

He waits until he hears it – the sound of his father’s alcohol-confused chuckling coming from the living room, louder than the TV’s muted tones of a track of laughter from people long-since dead. A sitcom.

And carefully pushes himself up from the spot on the kitchen floor that he had fallen to hours before, mindful not to touch a single one of the plastic cups to give his consciousness away.

The bottle of whiskey lays empty next to the discarded belt – there will be two more, both open, on the floor next to his father’s recliner, and by tonight they’ll both be just as empty as their predecessor and the man will be passed out but miraculously not dead.

Ears ringing, Bruce cautiously makes his way to his bedroom, twelve anniversaries worth of practice keeping him from stumbling into the walls or back down to the floor.

Sometimes, particularly around or on anniversaries, he thinks of doing something about it, the way alcohol poisoning won’t kill his old man. Sometimes, he pictures his hands wrapped around the man’s throat until the skin goes red and purple and pale and the eyes squint and bulge and stop blinking. Sometimes, he pictures himself slamming his _father’s_ head against the wall, over and over until the skull collapses and there’s nothing left to be recognized. Sometimes, he imagines beating his father up until the bruises break. Sometimes, he just imagines stealing the gun from the glovebox of Betty’s car, pointing it in his father’s face, and pulling the trigger. Fast. Final. Loud. Satisfying.

Thoughts like those, their frequency, scare him.

When he gets to his room, Bruce takes caution to slowly close his door until it clicks before flying into action. He snags the overly-large, incredibly worn (and therefore indescribably comfortable on burns and scrapes) black sweatshirt from the bottom of his closet and pulls it over his head, hoping it will catch and conceal any blood leaking from the welts. He slides into his equally black Crocs, feet tingling distantly at the contact with the rubber, and winces only a little when he turns too sharply and his left side flares up in protest. His backpack is exactly where he’d left it last night, against the back of his bed and still fully packed, and he grabs a strap to let it dangle along his side as he steps toward his window to quietly pull up the blinds.

The sunlight floods in, dousing Bruce in its foggy dust, and he can see Betty’s silver Cherokee along the side of the road, five houses down. Waiting for him just like she’d promised.

But his hands freeze as they land on the bottom of the window, as without really intending to, he throws a glance over his shoulder.

Twelve minutes – eighteen years inside of the white walls, wrapped in the blue sheets, assaulted by the same sunlight. His school books sit in a perfect stack in the corner of his otherwise empty desk and his pillow is still flat on his old mattress and there are a handful of plain-styled clothes he’s gathered from the Salvation Army that hang awkwardly in the closet on wire hangers.

That’s it.

There’s no true imprint of Bruce Banner in this room, no posters or CDs or free-reading books – there’s not an image of him on the hallway walls that hasn’t been ruined through being smashed into the carpet or broken by an angry fist at some point between twelve and eighteen. The only true evidence that he’s spent time in this house is the address under his name in the school’s system that only ever shows up on report cards that end up in the trash, anyway. But a breath of him, a look inside of his mind – there’s no proof anywhere that any of his actual self is real.

He’s staring into an empty room that could easily belong to any other kid – any other person at all. A space someone else could just slip right into without needing to change a thing.

His chin jerks away, breaking his gaze.

That’s good. That’s fair. That’s right.

Refusing the release of a grunt of pain, Bruce silently slides the window up and open, crawling through to touch the grass on the other side.

 

* * *

 

 

When a body of an otherwise healthy woman is discovered in her home in a pool of her own blood, the police are obligated to ask questions.

The officer who had questioned Bruce had been a different officer than the one who had questioned his father. She had been young, with light brown hair under her cap and warm brown eyes behind her glasses, and had looked so much like his mother that Bruce, already crying, had cried harder.

She had taken him into the living room, away from his father and farther away from his mother’s cold and bloody body, sat with on the couch, and gently asked what had happened.

His father had made Bruce watch as he’d unpacked both of the bags, putting things back from where his mother had taken them from – their clothes, Bruce’s books, her plastic cups. Everything put away before 9-1-1 had been dialed, and his father had frantically said to the operator –

“She was chasing me down the stairs and fell,” he’d answered. “I wasn’t doing what she’d asked me to do. It’s my fault.”

The officer hadn’t asked anything else after that. She’d hugged him, called him sweetheart, had sworn to him that his mother’s accident hadn’t been because of him, but she hadn’t asked anything else. None of them had asked anything else, no reason not to believe the story.

 _Obviously an accident, no one would just kill their Soulmate like that_ , he’d heard the police whispering to each other before they’d left. _Besides, kid looks guilty as hell for how it happened._

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce is fucked up.

He doesn’t need a psychiatric evaluation or the school guidance counselor or the not-so-whispered whispers of his classmates to tell him he’s fucked up.

He already knows it. The knowledge is deeper than the bruises and scars in his back, has existed in his head like a shadow older than twelve years.

“You don’t have to have the heat on,” he tells Betty. It’s eighty-two degrees outside and growing and the cottony heat flowing full-blast from the vents in Betty’s car is almost excruciatingly pleasant on everything about him that’s broken.

“Drink the Gatorade and shut up,” she growls back without taking her eyes off the road. Her tone only has a modicum of its usual playfulness, and her grip is nearly white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

She’s his best friend, Betty Ross – his only friend. He’s known her for seven years of school – she’s carried him through the four anniversaries that had followed the formation of his Words. He’s shared his hopes and fears and secrets with her, has trusted her, and she has returned that trust tenfold without an inch of hesitation.

“You have no idea how much I want to make a wrong turn right now,” she mutters, still focusing on the road.

Bruce knows more about Betty than he’s ever known about anyone, and yet here they are, him riding passenger while she takes him in the direction of a place that has caused her more nightmares and silent-tear-filled nights than anything else in her life. Simply because he’d asked her, quiet and reluctantly excited, a pink appointment card in his hand and a purple-red bruise freshly imprinted on his face.

“Yeah,” he sighs quietly – the grape-flavored liquid in the bottle dances in the sunlight like unearthed gems instead of compacted electrolytes. “I do.”

Fucked up.

“I want to take you home,” she continues, turning the wheel to lead them onto another road. “To _my_ house, and patch you up. I want to set you up in the guestroom and let you decorate it however you like – I want to stuff you full of homemade meals and sit you down in front of the TV or curl up on the couch with you and read science journals. And I want to do that for _days_ – months, even – so you can experience what a normal life should be like. What your life should be like.”

Bruce’s father watches sitcoms every night. In twelve, they’ve become suffocating – the same off-colored joke formula, those old laughter tracks the studios are still using. But when he’d been younger, during the years when he’d still been able to feel loving kisses on his cheeks and could recall the scent of vanilla and lavender, Bruce would wrap himself in his blue sheet and sneak out from his room, feet shuffling silently over carpet and linoleum alike until he’d reach the second archway of the kitchen. There, he’d huddle down into the smallest upright ball possible, shielded by the shadows and safe in his blanket, and he’d watch them over the shoulder of his father’s recliner. Those old sitcoms with those lame jokes and stupid laughter, with functional families and moms who sent their kids off to school and dads who kissed their wives and families who would eat dinner together at the same time, at the same table.

Always in the company of his father’s delayed, raspy chuckles and the powerful scent of whiskey.

“You can’t bring me to your house,” Bruce argues now, lifting the bottle to chase away the memory’s taste with Gatorade. His side spasms at the movement – the misplaced hit of the buckle reminding him – and he swallows back a telling groan. “Your dad hates me, remember? Besides, who knows how long it would take to set up another appointment.”

The car slows to a halt at a stop sign – his stomach comes alive with nerves as Betty flips the turn signal on.

“I know.”

They wait there for seconds longer than necessary, but Bruce doesn’t protest. He can hear her deep, shaky breaths, the way the leather of the steering wheel creaks under the pressure of the grip of her fingers.

But he still releases an uneven breath of his own when she eases off the break and turns in the right direction.

For several long minutes, they travel in a silence that swirls with tension and anticipation. His body sucks in the circulated heat like it can heal him, ~~like it can take away the past twelve years~~

“You’re going to forget about me,” Betty finally whispers. Bruce’s fingers tighten on the bottle – she’s never said _that_ directly to him before. “I’m going to drop you off and when you leave you’re going to have forgotten all about me.”

The night of the tenth anniversary (his second with her), when he’d been knocked out for longer than usual and his back had been brown and blue and soaked with agony and blood, he’d cried about the tragedy of Soulmates, and Betty had finally shared her story. About the overwhelmingly unhappy mother and the rocky marriage and the pink appointment slip. About walking into a white building and sitting at her mother’s bedside and watching a light fade away with each pulsing flood from the IV. About being known but completely forgotten, not the target of the separation but an attacked bystander.

Bruce hears a hitched breath from her now – the sound of a stifled sob – and the pain in his chest is worse than any other in his body.

“Betty…” He has nothing in his throat to say.

The white walls of the facility come into view before he can come up with any.

Betty drives towards it.

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce has a memory in his head that he can’t verify as an actual memory and not a dream or daydream.

Not something he’d conjured up all on his own to fix something that had been left unfinished in reality.

The pain … he knows that the pain in it had been real. That tenth anniversary, the first time that buckle had slashed into his body with purpose, going beyond skin and down through muscle, breaking apart his blocky Words. Over and over and over again, so much more than seven times – **R E B E C C A R E B E C C A R E B E C C A R E B E C C A**

The tears may have been real. Ten years had been more than enough time to banish the need for them, but the pain had been so much, so long, so deep.

But the words.

His father has titles and Bruce knows them by heart – useless, worthless, freak, nothing. _All your fault you worthless little bastard you did it get up you’re nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing-_

It’s always been a mantra, always been pre-written and unchanged. But that night had been so different, so much more – the beating of the belt, the breaking of his body, the ruin of his Words-

_If they’re gone then your Soulmate is spared from being tied to you_

Bruce doesn’t know if his father had said them, or if _he_ had.

 

* * *

 

 

Twelve years, and he can still clearly remember his mother’s Words-

**_You are the most intelligent, most beautiful creature I have ever seen in my life_ **

-wrapped in thin, almost shy cursive around her neck, loose like a lovingly-fitted collar. He remembers the way she would lightly touch them whenever someone would bring them up, laughter soft and musical over how cliché they sounded – but she had never tried to hide them. Not when people would comment on them. Not even when the bruises on her body had started becoming more and more consistent.

“Have you had anything to eat or drink today?”

The outside of the facility is all-white. The inside halls of the facility are all-white. The nurse standing in front of him, eyes glued to a tablet, is decked out in an all-white uniform. It’s enough to awaken the headache he’s been pushing off since he’d crawled into Betty’s car.

“Just Gatorade, like the sheet said I could have,” he answers, ignoring the indifferent hum he gets in response.

He remembers how inspired he’d always been by his mother’s love for her Words. How proud he’d been, even, with how dedicated both of his parents had been to their connection. No matter how often his father had yelled, or screamed, or threw things or hit, he’d never once covered **_Well aren’t you a charmer, Doctor Banner_** with a bracelet or watch.

Neither of them had ever threatened, no matter how bad things would get, to walk into a facility.

Bruce jumps slightly as an unseen pair of hands, covered in latex gloves, creep under his hoodie and brush against his hot skin. His body sings at the sudden twist.

“Sorry.” It’s a second nurse he hadn’t seen because they’d blended too seamlessly into his surroundings. “Just need to take your shirt off – we have a gown for you. You don’t have to remove your pants, but you paperwork says that your Words are on your back, so we’ll need visibility of them.”

“I thought it doesn’t remove the Words?” Bruce leans forward, just enough to make the clothing easier to move, his heart thrumming with excitement inside of his chest.

“There are no documented cases, no – chemical separation just removes the connection – but sometimes the skin around the Words can have a reaction to the agent when it’s introduced into the bloodstream-“ Bruce hisses as the hands begin to peel the hoodie away and over his head “- and we’ll need to act quickly if that happens – oh.”

The breeze from the room’s air conditioner stings the exposed skin more than it soothes it. Bruce harshly bites the inside of his cheek.

The nurse’s hands float over his back, more skimming than actual touching. “I’m not … I’m not sure if-.”

For a second, his heart stops.

“There’s no heavy bleeding, is there?” Bruce interrupts whatever the man is trying to say. “And there’s no broken bones. I’m not having trouble breathing, I don’t feel nauseas, and I don’t have double-vision or feel lightheaded. I told the administrative nurse multiple times before today that I’d be coming here with injuries, and I was assured that as long as nothing was life-threatening and that I wasn’t exhibiting any of those signs, that I’d be good to go. So here I am, good to go.”

The hands still continue with their hesitant, light touching – the first nurse is now watching him instead of staring at the tablet.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to wait until these have healed a bit, and you’re feeling better?” The second nurse presses. “You can always come back. There’s no time limit on this.”

At the offer, Bruce mind turns automatically to Betty, wondering if she’s still in the parking lot, _knowing_ that even if she isn’t, she’d be back in a flash if he calls her now. He can easily imagine her face if he does, the pure joy in her expression If he’d just walk back out of this horrifically sterile building without going through the procedure.

But it had taken eleven months to get this appointment. Twelve years.

He clenches his fist, his pink card crunching in on itself in his grip.

“I have an appointment.”

 

* * *

 

 

Despite how little importance society has put on Soulmates since the turn of the century, coupled ones are still, for some reason, regarded with awe and respect.

Nights Bruce has spent, just staring at his father passed out drunk in the living room. Nights he’s replayed the memory over and over again in his head, of the break in the man’s sanity and the way he’d cupped his mother’s head and slammed it so suddenly against the floor, screaming at her all the while as if no connection had ever existed between them at all.

She had bled out on the floor, twitching and gasping and _ending_ at the bottom of the stairs, one hand stretched out toward Bruce and the other wrapped around her own neck, touching her Words. His inspiration and pride dying in the puddle of her blood.

Betty had parked the car outside of the facility, turned to him, and said _I just know that if I could show you what a normal life could be like, a life without him in your ear every damn second of the day, that you could understand that there is nothing about you to be afraid of, Bruce Banner._

He’d kissed her forehead in silent gratitude and stepped out of the car.

 

* * *

 

 

The lights in the room have been turned down.

He can barely feel the needle burrowed into the dip of his elbow.

The liquid – the separator (scientists should really come up with an official name for it) – is green, looking almost like melted jello under the soft lights that float in through the observation window of his room. It hangs above his head like a fading sun that he can control with only the tiny little pump in his hand.

 _‘Press this every three minutes,’_ the first nurse had instructed, the other long gone. _‘When the whole bag is empty, you’ll be done, but you’ll begin to feel the effects almost immediately. Some people describe it as emotional detachment, but a majority say that it’s like being … calm for the first time in your life.’_

Bruce wants. Wants that calm more than anything.

 _‘And, uh, it doesn’t do anything to them, right?’_ he’d asked, not even blinking as the needle had been slid into place. _‘The uh… the other person? Soulmate?’_

_‘Not a thing.’_

The air conditioner is still on, but the blankets they’d pulled over him make a cocoon of warmth that slides his body into quiet ease, and the pillow under his head is plump and comforting.

Twelve years, and now here he is, on the day he’d wanted to be here, in this room, in this facility, his heart monitor beeping sedately by his side.

He’s okay.

The door opens – the first nurse slipping quietly inside.

“Halfway done,” the man notes, tapping the bag. Bruce nods. “I just need to check your back real quick to make sure there’s no reaction. Can you sit up just a little?”

He does. “I don’t feel anything new,” he offers helpfully, and the nurse chuckles as he shifts the gown.

“There’s nothing – not that you’d be able to feel it right now if there were. Probably won’t be, if there isn’t anything by now, but we’ll keep an eye on it, especially with your injuries.” There’s a firm, pointed tap against one of his higher, thicker scars. “I need to ask-.”

“I’m eighteen,” Bruce cuts off. “I have a job and an apartment set up already, both for next week, so this won’t happen again.” He pauses, then adds. “Neither the landlord or my boss had a problem with my age once I told them I had this appointment.”

The nurse chuckles again. “Yeah, that happens. So many doors just opens up for you when you through chemical separation. They like how focused you’ll be on work and responsibilities. I’ve actually requested an appointment of my own because of that-.”

The explosion isn’t deafeningly loud.

It doesn’t break the roof, or shatter glass – it barely shakes the walls.

It cries out more like a firecracker fired from a shotgun, and there is the sound of something somewhere crumbling. Its light illuminates his room with a strange red hue through the observation window, the only color Bruce has seen in hours, and close by, there’s shouting, so much of it, almost close enough for Bruce to understand the words.

The nurse stands back up. “What the hell?”

Without warning, the shadowed body of a man slams against the window, and Bruce, startled, flinches away.

“Hey, big guy, look over here, look at me – _look at me!_ ”

His heart monitor suddenly shrieks, and the nurse begins vehemently swearing. “Bruce, hit the plunger again!”

Bruce locks eyes with the wide, determined ones of the man on the glass.

“You don’t really want to do this! You can stop now! It won’t take if you stop now!”

“Bruce!”

The nurse is in front of him, scrambling for the plunger in his hand. Bruce looks at him.

Confused as to why his heartbeat is going so crazy.

“Fuck, fuck,” the nurse is muttering, pulling the pump from his fingers. “This hasn’t happened before, I don’t know-.” He depresses it, again and again and again, no three minutes between them. A hot river rushes into Bruce’s arm.

“Stop! Buddy, stop! Take it away from him, don’t let-!”

The man on the glass is being grabbed by other men in white uniforms – they’re dragging another, small and blonde and fighting just as fiercely, with a stoic, one-armed man following sedately behind, looking just as confused as Bruce feels. “Let him go!” The man is shouting, but he’s still looking through the glass into Bruce’s room, fighting being dragged away. “You can’t do that to him! You can’t make that choice for him!”

“My Words?” Bruce asks, quiet – his body writhes a little at the increasing heat, and the nurse’s hand falls heavily on his shoulder, holding him down.

“Shh.”

“You’re not allowed to do that to him!” A raised fist.

A splatter of red against his window.

The man disappears.

“Shhh, Bruce,” the nurse repeats, still depressing the plunger. Bruce looks back at him – there’s a wildly uncertain fear in his eyes he can’t match. “Just stay calm. Everything is okay. Just stay calm.”

The heart monitor whines its frustration.

Bruce blinks, boiling inside.

“I am calm.”

 

* * *

 

 

_I just know that if I could show you what a normal life could be like, a life without him in your ear every damn second of the day, that you could understand that there is nothing about you to be afraid of, Bruce Banner._

_There won’t be._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chemical separation - the chemical process of dissolving the connection between Soulmates to the point of nonexistence. Side-effects may include: Emotional detachment, confusion, moderate-to-severe memory loss, disinterest in family and/or family activities, depression, hair loss, loss of appetite, development or increase in suicidal thoughts or actions, and redness or swelling at the injection site.**


	7. Abruptly Nothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **prompt: "arrival"**

* * *

 

 

_Even before the first attack, America had known about Hydra._

_Terrifying though they were, terrorist organizations that sprouted up in destabilizing countries were not uncommon, and over the course of time, had even come to be expected. Hydra, at first, had behaved no differently than any other – just another group of men with guns and agendas and no apparent national loyalty, surging into one unstable region after another, feeding off of fear and desire for change, coming in like Biblical saviors and taking and exploiting all offered gratitude. They’d attacked and raided and subdued countries that, in unprofessed truth, had been no friends to the United States, destroying threats before they could become threatening._

_Sure, their methods had been unusual, maybe even alarming – no one wanted to hear of successful rebellions that included public executions of the opposition, of children orphaned and alone while fleeing the violence – but it happened all of the time. The people in those countries knew the dangers they risked in continuing to live there, and their governments, being either Communist or Socialist or corrupt, were practically inviting the horrifying carnage. And as always, those terrors were happening overseas. The people being tortured and killed weren’t American people. Any government that was toppled and ruined was never the American government. Hydra’s almost Nazi-like regime wasn’t being injected into the bloodstream of American society. It was horrible, what Hydra was doing – heartbreaking and enraging. Of course it was._

_But it wasn’t happening in America._

_And then, one ordinary Friday evening, when most were just getting off from work and major highways were packed with the traffic of people exhausted from serving another long work week and just wanting to get home, seventeen Hydra napalm bombs were dropped from cloaked airplanes onto American soil, the overseas flooding in._

_Thousands of people died, most more slowly and in much more pain than would ever be reported to the general public._

_And America, stunned and hemorrhaging from the sudden, traumatic amputation, changed._

 

* * *

 

 

Tony was already awake by the time the clocks in the small apartment all simultaneously hit 6:37, eyes wide open in the dark as the abrupt, piercing wail of the air raid siren positioned on top of the water tower seven miles away began to cry out long and loud, like the first denying cry of a mother who had just been told that her child was dead.

Spread out on the bed, still encased in the covers, his body instinctively jerked in an effort to get up at the sound. Ten months of daily air strike drill had conditioned them all to be awake and alert at the first note of the warning – making participation mandatory by heavily-enforced laws had conditioned them all to be up and moving toward their shelters just as quickly. And for every day of the past ten months, at precisely 6:37 AM, Tony had been just that – awake, alert, quickly herding his small family toward their assigned shelter as fast as possible. Whether it was the fear of the arrival of death at his family’s doorstep or the fear of the law’s punishment that motivated him, he didn’t know or care – he just did it. Every single day.

But today-

“I can’t believe you just said that,” he whispered, barely loud enough to be heard over the siren. There was a sickening chill in his gut, a bitter swirl of something so inconceivably _wrong_. “I can’t believe you would even _think_ that.”

There were no lights on, and the sun was not even awake yet to witness the people practice their would-be attempts at survival, and so he couldn’t see – but Tony didn’t need to see Bruce’s face right now, when he could feel the younger man tense beside him.

“I can’t either.” The confession sounded heartbroken, and even through the growing bitterness, Tony still ached for the other man. Just enough that he still didn’t move. “But, God, Tony, tell me you’ve never thought something like that. Tell me that you don’t understand where I’m coming from.”

The sheets between them bunched a little and then pulled taut, caught in an agonized, confused grip that was too metaphorical. Tony’s jaw clenched, his teeth grinding against each other as he stayed silent.

No, he hadn’t had thoughts like that. Not ever – not even once. Just the _idea_ of it made his insides churn and wither.

The sheets pulled tighter, and the siren began to wind down to suck in its first breath.

“There’s more military on the streets every day,” Bruce continued, voice trembling. “Coming up with stricter curfews, harsher rules – more checkpoints and random searches and selective interrogations that some people don’t come back from. They’re watching and listening to everything we say and do … but it’s not just fear mongering. The government isn’t taking advantage of us being in a fragile or uncertain state. LA is _gone_. We sat here and watched as all of those people burned to death on national television and there was nothing would do to stop it or help them. And Hydra sends out new threats to us every day while they continue terrorizing innocent people in other countries. Men, women, _kids_ …” Bruce’s breath hitched audibly. “We’re … losing, one way or another. We’re losing, and I just don’t … Tell me how this is a life worth living. Tell me how people can have hope in this. How a child can grow up in this?”

The siren cried out again, higher and louder than before. A drill siren, made only of fear and not an ounce of warning.

Limbs jumping again, Tony finally turned his head toward his lover. His vision immediately filled with the shadows of thick curls and the barely-there outline of a nose that Tony liked to kiss because he loved the way it made Bruce melt against him, blush staining his face. The other man wasn’t looking at him, but if he were, Tony knew those brown eyes would be irritated-red from sleep deprivation, bags heavy and dark beneath them, as if life was determined that Bruce should wear his exhaustion on his face to show every person still alive how hard it was working him over – how much this world was succeeding in breaking him down, just when he’d started to find his feet again.

Tony licked his lips, the horrible feeling swirling but not abating even as his fingers twitched out to grab the other man’s. “Bruce, it’s-.”

“Daddy? Tony?”

The bedroom door cracked open, and this time both of them jerked up as Peter’s little face stuck through the created gap. Despite the lack of useable light, the yellow Child Air Strike Safety Helmet was just visible enough to see as it wobbled on Peter’s head, the straps not yet buckled.

Bruce took in a deep, hard breath that dipped the mattress, moving Tony’s body with it like a boat rolling with a wave.

But Tony immediately pulled back the covers, swinging his legs over the side of the bed without hesitation as the six-year-old slipped all the way into the room. “Hey, kiddo,” he greeted cheerfully, pretending, kicking around for the shoes he always had waiting. “Daddy’s hip’s bothering him this morning, so we’re going to let him stay here and get some rest. You okay with going down to the shelter with just me this morning? I’ll let you ride on my back.”

Bruce made a wordless noise of building protest, but Peter was already nodding so wildly that his helmet was in danger of falling off.

“We gotta hurry though or we’ll get in trouble,” he said anxiously, but his pace was sedate – almost somber – as he moved around the bed and pushed himself up on the tips of his toes to give Bruce a kiss. “You need to rest, Daddy,” Tony heard him whisper. “I don’t like it when your hip hurts.”

“I’m already feeling tons better, sweetheart.” Bruce leaned just enough to let Peter’s kiss hit his cheek, and Tony felt a rippling flinch in his shoulders at the affectionate action.

“Peter,” he called softly, coming around the bed. He felt Bruce’s gaze fall on him. “Why don’t you go make sure Natasha’s ready to go? She’s always happy to see you in the mornings.”

Peter’s head swiveled. “I still get to ride on your back?” he asked suspiciously, and even with the air raid siren wailing in the background, Tony chuckled, a little surprised to hear an echo of the sound coming from Bruce’s mouth.

“Yeah, yeah.” He tapped on the helmet. “But only if you hurry.”

With an unintelligible yell and a significantly larger amount of energy, Peter was off like a shot to Natasha’s apartment across the hall.

And it was just them again.

Yesterday, Tony had come home to the sight of Bruce hunched over his phone, watching a news report of Hydra’s most recent executions and threats.

“Stay here,” he told him now, soft, trying to be coaxing. “Not just for the drill – the whole day. You need the sleep. I’ll call your boss.”

“I’ll get another penalty strike. The bill will be higher this time.”

This life would never be fair. “We’ll handle it. Your Disability Allowance will knock it down, anyway. We’ll be fine.”

In the beginning, Tony had recognized that he had fallen in love with Bruce’s _quirks_ before he had recognized that he had fallen in love with _Bruce_ , had noticed the fondness that would spin in his stomach at the way the man would fidget when anxious before he had noticed that that fondness was _always_ there around him. He watched, now, as Bruce’s shadow-dark fingers plucked at the blanket that still covered his legs, the way his whole body seemed to tremble in time with the siren, and it was still there.

“I love my son.” Bruce mumbled the words toward the bed – Tony’s ears greedily grabbed them.

Every day after lunch, the kids at school had another air strike drill, where they would all get under their desks, curl into balls, and cover their heads. Peter was still young enough to believe that hiding under his desk would protect him in an air strike.

“I know,” he responded quietly – Bruce’s fingers snagged a thread and ripped it free a little too viciously.

Every day, Tony would watch as Bruce made his way around their apartment with the aid of his cane, looking for reasons to smile and forget about the father that had left his hip shattered at thirteen. Reasons that had become scarce since the bombs fell.

“I didn’t mean it,” Bruce added, head shaking. “What I said earlier, I didn’t – I wouldn’t do that. I would _never fucking do that_ , Tony. Even if one of those Hydra bastards was standing here with a gun to my head, I _wouldn’t do it_ – I wouldn’t let it _happen_ -.”

_(“Sometimes I think it would be better for him if he just didn’t wake up to this anymore…”)_

Every day, Tony would drive Peter to that school, and try to be enough of a reason. Try to keep them all floating.

Bruce shifted on the bed. “Fuck, Tony. I’m just … I’m tired. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just _so fucking tired_.”

_(“I wouldn't let him feel it.")_

The words danced desperately over the pleading, trembling chords of a contained sob.

And Tony surged down.

The kiss wasn’t out of lust. It wasn’t meant to provoke need or instigate sex or build up an inside heat that only sought release. Tony pushed it forward but kept it closed, so different from their flirty, laughing kisses before Hydra, one hand grabbing Bruce’s on the blanket, the other sliding into his hair. Bruce returned the kiss, softer but just as closed, whimpering against him with the cries he wouldn’t let go. _I love you._ Silent. _You’re a good man._ Silent. _A good father._ Silent. _We’re going to be fine. We can get through this. We can survive._ Silent. _I wish I could fix this for you._ Silent. _I love the hell out of you, Bruce._

“Tony!” Peter’s voice screeched out from down the hall, back in the apartment, slicing through their air raid silence and fragile connection. “Natasha’s ready, we gotta go!”

No, this life would never be fair. Not to Bruce, not to them. Not to anyone.

Slowly, Tony pulled back, the bones of his fingers aching as he loosened them from Bruce's hair, the stale taste of their warm kiss buzzing on his lips.

"Bruce." It slipped from his throat. "Bruce, I-."

Without warning, the siren cut off, nothing left to their ears but their own breathing and the quick sound of Peter's footsteps toward their door.

And then, low and trembling, it **screamed.**

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The extended version of chapter one [can be found here.](http://ashnapalm.tumblr.com/post/153251272879/dusk-to-daybreak-human)
> 
> 2\. If you're curious, [this is what a Penalty Bill from chapter seven looks like](http://ashnapalm.tumblr.com/post/153251433404/a-copy-of-a-penalty-bill-from-dusk-to-daybreak)
> 
> 3\. I had two alternate ideas for Momentary and Blue, but they got far too long to post in here. So now there will be a zombie-themed story and an angst-filled modern AU in December matching those prompts. :)
> 
> 4\. I apologize for taking so long to get this done. To put it simply and politely, I overestimated how well I would adjust to moving.


End file.
